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Ascent, a St. Louis-based provider of solutions for the development, design and operation of data centers, is expanding its footprint in its hometown, with plans to develop a new multi-tenant facility spread across 15 acres of a greenfield site.

The company and its affiliate Cantor Fitzgerald paid $875 million to purchase the capital solutions provider, and invested an additional $100 million in finance and investment business CF Real Estate Finance Holdings LP.

In the third quarter of this year, U.S. e-commerce sales increased 3.6 percent from the second quarter, while total retail sales increased just 1.1 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's latest report.